Friday, September 30, 2016

A multicultural pedophile

The religion of the offender is not mentioned, for some unknown reason. The surname Bhatti comes both from Northern India and Pakistan but people named Hamid are almost invariably Muslims. It is an Arab religious name

A teaching assistant was caught having a fling with a 15-year-old schoolgirl after her mother found his love note saying, 'You were amazing last night as always', a court heard.

Hamid Bhatti, 24, allegedly slept with the pupil 14 times after grooming her while on a work placement at her school.

He lavished her with love notes and jewellery before having sex with her on his bedroom floor, jurors were told.

The girl, who was studying for her GCSEs, had developed a 'crush' on him and thought he was 'good looking' after spotting him in an art lesson, it was said.

They crossed paths between lessons at the school in Yeovil, Somerset, and swapped numbers via Facebook after she messaged him from a friend's account.

Concerns were raised when the girl was spotted blowing the maths assistant a kiss out of the classroom window - and he caught it and 'threw' it back, it was said.

When challenged, the two conspired together and claimed it was just a 'joke', denying there was anything untoward going on, Taunton Crown Court heard.

But they were already in a sexual relationship and over the next eight months, Bhatti allegedly slept with the girl - who he met when she was just 14 - at least 14 times, the court was told.

On one occasion, Bhatti slept with the girl - who was drunk after going to a party - on his bedroom floor while her teenage friend slept in his bed, prosecutors claim.

He also told her he loved her and gave her a necklace, money and a cushion with 'I love you' written on it, the court heard.

Bhatti and the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were questioned multiple times by police but she lied to stop him from getting into trouble, it was said.

The defendant, who has a thick black beard and long hair, denies five counts of sexual activity with a child at least 14 times between May 2014 and February 2015.

He also denies abducting a child after he allegedly ignored an order made by police banning him from having any contact with the girl.

Lee Bremridge, prosecuting, said: 'The Crown says that he knew full well how old the girl was.

'A sexual relationship between them started in May 2014 when he worked at the school and she was a pupil.

'That sexual relationship continued throughout later 2014 into 2015, which is why she was prepared to lie to the police and tell them that nothing happened when she was interviewed.

'It was because they were in a relationship together and she was protecting him.'

Concerns were first raised by a fellow teacher at the school after Bhatti, then 22, was seen escorting the girl to class and they blew each other a kiss, the court heard.

He was sacked from his job the following month, in June 2014, and social services got involved.

The girl and Bhatti, who got a new job in a restaurant, maintained that they had never slept together, with Bhatti claiming the girl was 'pestering' him.

But a jury was told on Monday that he initiated intimacy with the youngster after inviting her on a date while he was still employed by the school.

They kissed and cuddled and allegedly had sex for the first time later that week, in May 2014, after arranging to go on a second date.

The girl was questioned by police in July 2014 after she turned up at school with a 'black eye' and her mother was called in, the court heard.

But she was 'less than truthful' about what had happened and said she and Bhatti had not had sex, and that the black eye was from tripping over, it was said.

Mr Brembridge said: 'She said that although she had a crush on Hamid Bhatti and had stayed at his house, they never had sex.

'The girl was clearly protecting them because the two of them were having a sexual relationship and they didn't want anyone, particularly the police or her parents, to find out.'

In October 2014, the girl's mother called police after finding a handwritten note among her daughter's belongings.

Bhatti, who now lives in Rochdale, Yorkshire, allegedly wrote: 'Hey baby, I'm sorry I had to leave this morning for work. You were amazing last night as always. 'I hope you get this message and leave me a note. Plan to see you soon. I love you. P.s. don't forget to go to the doctors.'

The couple still denied they were having an affair, but the note prompted police to issue Bhatti with an anti-abduction notice, prohibiting him from contacting the child.

The court heard that the teacher ignored the warning and was finally caught out after the teenager went missing in February 2015. Police went to Bhatti's house to enquire about the girl's whereabouts and he told them he had not seen or spoken to her for a long time. Suspicious, they returned later that day and officers standing at the back of the property in Yeovil, Somerset, caught the teenager trying to flee.

Police discovered a used condom with the pupil's DNA on it in his bedroom.

Bhatti was arrested and charged with sex with a minor in June 2015, after the girl, who by that time had turned 16, finally told police the 'whole truth'.

He admits sleeping with the girl in February 2015 but denies knowing she was underage at the time.

Back in the 1960s, as large numbers of black students were entering a certain Ivy League university for the first time, someone asked a chemistry professor — off the record — what his response to them was. He said, “I give them all A’s and B’s. To hell with them.”

Since many of those students were admitted with lower academic qualifications than other students, he knew that honest grades in a tough subject like chemistry could lead to lots of failing grades, and that in turn would lead to lots of time-wasting hassles — not just from the students, but also from the administration.

He was not about to waste time that he wanted to invest in his professional work in chemistry and the advancement of his own career. He also knew that his “favor” to black students in grading was going to do them more harm than good in the long run, because they wouldn’t know what they were supposed to know.

Such cynical calculations were seldom expressed in so many words. Nor are similar cynical calculations openly expressed today in politics. But many successful political careers have been built on giving blacks “favors” that look good on the surface but do lasting damage in the long run.

One of these “favors” was the welfare state. A vastly expanded welfare state in the 1960s destroyed the black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and generations of racial oppression.

In 1960, before this expansion of the welfare state, 22 percent of black children were raised with only one parent. By 1985, 67 percent of black children were raised with either one parent or no parent.

A big “favor” the Obama administration is offering blacks today is exemption from school behavior rules that have led to a rate of disciplining of black male students that is greater than the rate of disciplining of other categories of students.

Is it impossible that black males misbehave in school more often than Asian females? Or Jewish students? Or others?

Is the only possible reason for the disparities in disciplining rates that the teachers and principals are discriminating against black males? Even when many of these teachers and principals in black neighborhoods are themselves black?

But Washington politicians are on the case. It strengthens the political vision that blacks are besieged by racist enemies, from which Democrats are their only protection. They give black youngsters exemptions from behavioral standards, just as the Ivy League chemistry professor gave them exemption from academic standards.

In both cases, the consequence — unspoken today — is “to hell with them.” Kids from homes where they were not given behavioral standards, who are then not held to behavioral standards in schools, are on a path that can lead them as adults straight into prison, or to fatal confrontations with the police.

This is ultimately not a racial thing. Exactly the same welfare state policies and the same non-judgmental exemption from behavioral standards in Britain have led to remarkably similar results among lower-class whites there.

The riots of lower-class whites in London, Manchester and other British cities in 2011 were incredibly similar to black riots in Ferguson, Baltimore and other American cities — right down to setting fire to police cars.

One of the few bright spots for black children in American ghettos have been some charter schools that have educated these children to levels equal to, and in some cases better than, those in affluent suburbs.

You might think that this would be welcomed by those who are so ready to do “favors” for blacks. But you would be dead wrong. Democrats who have been in charge of most cities with sizable black populations, for decades, are on record opposing the spread of charter schools. So is the NAACP.

That is a de facto declaration of moral bankruptcy in both cases, just as in the case of the Ivy League chemistry professor. In all three cases, it is a question of promoting one’s own special interests, while offering “favors” to blacks.

The Democrats' special interest is in serving the teachers' unions, which oppose charter schools and support Democrats financially. The NAACP’s special interest is in serving the same donors — and in keeping ghetto schools controlled by racial activists, as part of their turf.

This may be the first and last time I agree with a U.N. official but I think the lady below is right. I have previously argued that China now has a perfectly legal right to the islands it has built in the East China sea: The right of first settlement

Australia is well placed to make the case to Washington to try to reform international organisations to accommodate China's rise, according to a senior EU advisor.

Nathalie Tocci, a special advisor to the European Union's High Representative, says as Europe is doing some soul searching about giving up some of its own power, other countries need to do the same.

"Unless we start doing that we may end up in a situation where other organisations pop up," Dr Tocci told AAP on Wednesday.

China needed to be told the world understood it was growing and needed more space, within rules and limits.

"It's also about telling Americans, you've got to make that space, otherwise they are going to take it and it's not going to be pretty," she said.

The China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, set up in opposition to the US-based International Monetary Fund and World Bank, was the "first warning signal", she said.

Other bodies such as the World Trade Organisation and even parts of the UN could also need reform.

"In order to ensure that multilateralism survives into the future, we have to transform it," Dr Tocci said.

She urged Australia to take a leadership role because it understands China's rise is inevitable.

"I think, given Australia's relationship with the United States, it has a huge role to play in making the case," Dr Tocci said.

On the prospects of an EU and Australian free trade deal, Dr Tocci, who helped draft the new global strategy on foreign and security policy after Britain voted to leave the bloc, said politicians needed to start laying the ground work early in order to win over a hostile public.

"These are not easy times. What we are seeing is a backlash against globalisation," she said.

"A lot of explaining needs to be done about why these agreements are actually good." She predicts the deal could be finalised by 2018.

Jennifer Oriel writes from Australia on the wish by Australian conservatives to let the homosexual marriage issue be settled by a popular vote

There is something rather dangerous about the gay marriage debate — and it is not homosexuality or marriage.

It is the view widely held by our political Left that ­liberal democratic precepts can be overridden whenever they interfere with politically correct ideology.

Not content merely to deny the democratic mandate of millions who endorsed the same-sex marriage plebiscite by voting the Coalition into power, Labor is sowing civil hatred as social order.

The abysmal and divisive new ethos of Labor is the audacity of hate.

I think it would be fair to surmise that the opposition’s legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus doesn’t suffer from an excess of modesty.

But even so, his idea that the government should “win over” Labor by compromising on the plebiscite bill is remarkably arrogant. The government has an election mandate to hold a plebiscite on same-sex marriage. Labor’s ­denial of it constitutes a repudiation of the will of the people.

Having lost its election campaign to deny people a vote on marriage reform, Labor has swung into attack.

It is reframing the plebiscite ­debate by exploiting fear and manipulating emotion. In one short week, Labor has succeeded in re­framing the founding principles of liberal democracy as manifestations of hatred — all in the name of love, of course.

In Labor’s grand lexicon of doublespeak, public reason, active citizenship, and the human rights to free thought and speech, freedom of association and religion are mistranslated into forms of ­hatred. And the citizen who seeks active participation in democracy by advocating for the same-sex marriage plebiscite is, by extension, hatred personified.

Increasingly it is the case that whenever a question of social reform arises, the political Left reverts to the audacity of hate to coerce people into conformity. Its default position is to mob and vilify dissenters.

It acts as though Australia were a country under democratic socialism rather than liberal democracy.

Like revolutionary socialism, the democratic model holds socialism as the only end of democracy, but its tenets are introduced using the state and associ­ated institutions rather than militant revolution.

During the past week, the socialist Left position on gay marriage has been promulgated by Labor, the Greens and the state media institutions that consistently follow the Left party line: SBS and the ABC.

In news and on current affairs programs, the ABC has so aggressively campaigned for the socialist Left’s anti-plebiscite position, it appeared there was no alternative. And that is perfectly consistent with the one-party-rule ethos of democratic socialism.

But it just happens to run counter to the Australian people’s will — namely, the democratic mandate for a plebiscite endorsed at the federal election.

Whenever a pro-plebiscite voice is raised, the Left howls it down in a chorus of contempt. Predictably, Christians and conservatives are the principal victims of the Left’s pre-emptive moral infallibility.

For example, when it looked as though Stephen O’Doherty, chief executive of Christian Schools Australia, was winning the plebiscite debate on ABC’s The Drum, host Julia Baird interrupted to promulgate an anti-plebiscite line in unison with the other panellists.

The tendency of the political Left to contort democracy whenever it conflicts with politically correct ideology is evident also in its main counter-argument to the plebiscite, which actually constitutes a rationale for it.

Anti-plebiscite politicians and commentators believe they can relieve Australia of the people’s will by appeal to representative democracy.

Yet the zenith of representative democracy — the popular democratic election under a system of universal suffrage — yielded a yes vote for the plebiscite as a central feature of the Coalition’s election platform.

In recent years the appeal to representative democracy has been fashioned into a rhetorical tool of convenience to justify everything from policy reversals to unseating prime ministers. It is the default defence of those who seek a ready rationale for acting against the will of the people expressed in federal elections.

And it seems that appeals to representative democracy strip­ped of both genuine representation and democracy are especially popular among the members of left-leaning factions in both major parties.

However, hollow appeals to representative democracy threaten its future by subordinating the people’s will to party politics and replacing election mandates with polls.

They are the source of the growing democratic deficit — the vast gulf between the people and the elites — producing political instability across the West.

The government has a mandate to pass the bill for a plebiscite on same-sex marriage. The mandate was provided by millions of Australians who voted for the Coalition in the July election.

Labor would have liked to win the election with its opposing campaign to legislate for same-sex marriage in parliament. But it did not win. Having lost the popular vote, Labor seeks to subvert democracy by blocking the plebiscite.

The worrying implication is that the Left may actually loathe the people and mistrust democracy as much as its anti-plebiscite propaganda suggests.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

'All these offences are serious and the girls have been deeply and probably permanently scarred by their experience and I am aware of the damage to them and their families as a result of your actions. 'The seriousness is such, that a determinate sentence is not appropriate, and I am sentencing you to life.

'You are very dangerous. Your behaviour is described as protracted and they say you pose a high risk towards children, and a high risk of reoffending.'

Judge Harwood-Smart sentenced Badran to life with a minimum term of eight years and four months in jail.

Jewish activist is HECKLED at Labour conference as he slams the party for becoming an unsafe place for Jews

Jewish Leftists are a pathetic lot

A leader of Jews in the Labour party was heckled from the floor of party conference today as he slammed an 'upsurge' in anti-Semitism.

Mike Katz said Labour had become a party that was 'not seen as welcoming to Jews' amid a growing dispute about anti-Semitism among activists supporting Jeremy Corbyn.

But as Mr Katz urged delegates to immediately adopt party rule changes to make it easier to remove anti-Semites from ranks, he was loudly heckled from the floor.

Reports suggested the activist shouted that Mr Katz, vice-chairman of the Jewish Labour Movement, did not speak for all Jews and was talking 'rubbish'.

Mr Corbyn faced renewed calls at conference from MPs to do more on anti-Semitism at the conference after claims were made on the conference fringes that racism was being 'weaponised' against the Labour leader.

In his speech, Mr Katz said: 'I don't want to be here because I wish there hadn't been an upsurge in antisemitics, Islamophobic, misogynistic and homophobic vile hate speech in our party, even here, in our exhibitions and on our fringe, I'm sad to report.

'Jeremy [Corbyn] has said it, Tom [Watson] has said it, we have all said it; there is no place for this in our party. We must root it out.

'Against this backdrop, is there any wonder that support for Labour amongst British Jews is said to be as low as 7 per cent.

'It makes me weep; the party of Manny Shinwell, the party that has done more than any other to promote tolerance and inequality, the party to which the Jewish Labour Movement has been affiliated since 1920, is not seen as a welcoming home for Jews.'

The row comes after Labour's ruling national executive committee last week decided only to 'note' proposals – which would make it easier to expel those responsible for anti-Semitism and other forms of racism – meaning they will not be implemented until next year.

Mr Katz said it was a 'let down' that it will be another 12 months before 'we can signal to our members that we're serious about dealing with the problems. We shouldn't have to wait another year. It should be now'.

Israeli ambassador Mark Regev is at the Labour conference in Liverpool today to attend the annual Labour Friends of Israel Reception.

Mr Corbyn is due to attend the event on the fringes of the main conference tonight.

A year ago, the Labour leader ran into trouble for his speech at the event as he was criticised for not using the word Israel in his main remarks or while taking questions.

Anti-Semitism returned to the forefront of the conference yesterday as Illford North MP Wes Streeting, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on British Jews, spoke out.

Leaflets distributed outside a meeting on religious hatred by the left-wing pressure group Momentum were branded 'anti-Semitic and undeniably racist' by Mr Streeting.

The leaflets claimed that the Jewish Labour Movement acted as 'a representative of a foreign power, Israel' and called for it to be disaffiliated from the Labour Party.

Mr Streeting told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'That last comment, 'acts as a representative of a foreign power', this isn't ambiguous. This is classic anti-semitic trope, at our conference.

'In terms of some of the people we're talking about, and the problem that occurs, they're not going to listen to people like me. 'But they do place a lot of faith and stock in Jeremy.

'As someone who has a track record of tackling racism and discrimination, I think in the past year he's had a golden opportunity which he hasn't yet taken up to show real leadership on this, and help navigate through some of the problems we face in terms of anti-Semitism.'

Mr Streeting acknowledged that anti-Semitism was not a problem among the vast majority of Labour members, and that anti-Semitism can be used to shut down legitimate debate on Israel. He added: 'But sometimes that debate does spill over into anti-semitism.

'Jeremy Corbyn has got an opportunity to show real leadership to help steer us through. 'I feel in the past year he hasn't acknowledged the extent and the nature of the problem, or helped us reach a solution.'

Three Walmart workers in McDonough, Georgia, refused to decorate a “thin blue line” cake for a police officer’s retirement party because they said it was racist.

A number of my Georgia readers alerted me to the story and on Saturday night I spoke directly with the police officer’s daughter. She asked that I not divulge her name and I’ve agreed to honor her request.

“I was so shocked,” she told me. “I didn’t know what to do or say or anything. I was trying not to lose my temper or make a scene.”

For the record, Walmart has confessed that most of her allegations are true. I’ll have more on that a bit later in this column.

The police officer’s daughter went to the Walmart on Willow Drive on Sept. 22 to order a flag for her father’s retirement party. He was leaving the force after 25 years on the job.

She showed the bakers a photograph of the police officer’s flag — the black and white version of Old Glory with a blue line.

“One of the bakers told me the design could be perceived as racist and nobody feels comfortable decorating the cake,” the police officer’s daughter told me.

As an alternative, she suggested a chocolate-frosted cake with a horizontal, frosted blue line.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Sunderland is in England's far North. In the glory days of the British navy, many of its ships were built at Sunderland. It is still 95% white

A mother-of-three has allegedly been drugged and raped by a gang of migrants – sparking violent demonstrations.

The 26-year-old said she woke up in a strange house with cuts and bruises, and believes her drink had been spiked on a night out before she was abducted and sexually assaulted.

Far-right supporters organised a protest six days in the city after the alleged attack which turned violent.

Those on the march, including members of the Sunderland Defence League, met outside The Ivy Leaf Club at 11am on September 10. They smashed windows at the terraced house where the woman says she was attacked and clashed with a counter protest, led by members of the Asian community.

Police rushed to control the demonstrations which was attended by dozens protesters.

Two Asian men, unconnected with the alleged rape, were injured and five men, all from Sunderland, were arrested for offences including affray.

Sunderland Central MP Julie Elliott last night called for calm.

Southern Area Command Chief Inspector Paul Milner said: 'We know the woman had been in Sunderland City Centre on Saturday night before waking up in a strange address in Peel Street with cuts and bruises.

'She managed to leave the house and get to a family member's home at around 5am on Sunday morning. 'The victim believes her drink may have been spiked.

'This is obviously a very serious incident and something we know the local community will be concerned about and we will have officers on patrol to offer reassurance to anyone who may be concerned and answer any queries they may have.'

When your news and views come from a tightly controlled, left-wing media echo chamber, it may come as a bit of a shock to learn that in the July election almost 600,000 voters gave their first preference to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party. You may also be surprised to know that still deluded conservatives remain disenchanted with the media’s favourite Liberal, Malcolm Turnbull, for his epic fail as Prime Minister, especially when compared with the increasingly respected leader he deposed.

Perhaps when media outlets saturate us with “appropriate” thoughts and “acceptable” speech, and nonconformists are banished from television, radio and print, it’s easy to miss what is happening on the uneducated side of the tracks. After all, members of the better educated and morally superior political class use a compliant media to shelter us from the dangerous, racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, sexist, welfare-reforming, climate-change denying bigots who inhabit the outer suburbs and countryside — the people whom Hillary Clinton calls “the deplorables”.

They must be vilified without debate, lest too many of us waver on the virtues of bigger governments, central planning, more bloated bureaucracies, higher taxes, unaffordable welfare, a “carbon-free” economy, more regulations, open borders, gender-free and values-free schools and same-sex marriage; the sort of agenda that finds favour at the UN.

Yet history is solid with evidence that this agenda will never deliver the promised human dignity, prosperity and liberty. Only free and open societies with small governments can do that.

Gradually, the masses are realising something is wrong. Their wealth and income growth is stagnating and their living standards are threatened. They see their taxes wasted on expensive, ill-conceived social programs. They live with migrants who refuse to integrate. They resent having government in their lives on everything from home renovations to recreational fishing, from penalty rates to free speech.

Thomas Jefferson’s warning that “the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground” is now a stark reality.

The terms “people’s representative” and “public servant” have become a parody. In today’s world we are the servants and, if it suits, we are brushed aside with callous indifference. Like the Labor government’s disregard for the enormous emotional and financial hurt suffered when, overnight, it shut down live cattle exports on the strength of a television show.

Or like the NSW parliament passing laws banning greyhound racing in the state. There was no remorse for the ruined lives of thousands of innocent people, many of whom won’t recover. Talk of compensation is a travesty.

Or like the victims neighbouring Williamtown and Oakey air force bases, made ill from toxic contamination of groundwater. Around the world it’s known chemical agents used in airport fire drills cause cancer, neurological disease and reproductive disorders, yet the Australian Department of Defence simply denies responsibility. The powerless are hopelessly trapped between health risks and valueless properties.

Similar disdain is shown for those living near coal-seam gas fields and wind turbines. The authorities know of the health and financial impacts but defend operators by bending rules and ignoring guidelines.

If governments believe the ends justify the means, people don’t matter.

When Ernst & Young research finds one in eight Australians can’t meet their electricity bills, rather than show compassion for the poor and the elderly, governments push ruthlessly ahead with inefficient and expensive renewable energy projects.

This newspaper’s former editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell reveals in his book, Making Headlines, how Kevin Rudd, when prime minister, brazenly attempted to use state power to investigate “the relationship between my paper and him”. Rudd’s successor, Julia Gillard, wanted to establish a media watchdog to effectively gag journalists.

None of this is fantasy and it explains why people are losing confidence in the democratic system. Australians feel increasingly marginalised and unrepresented. They are tired of spin and being lied to. They know that data is often withheld or manipulated.

As they struggle to make ends meet, they watch helplessly as the established political class shamelessly abuses its many privileges. It appears its sole purpose in life is to rule, not to govern. This adds weight to the insightful contention by the Business Council of Australia’s Jennifer Westacott that Australia is in desperate need of a national purpose.

It’s no wonder, to paraphrase American author Don Fredrick, that a growing number of Australians no longer want a tune-up at the same old garage. They want a new engine installed by experts — and they are increasingly of the view that the current crop of state and federal mechanics lacks the skills and experience to do the job.

One Nation may not be the answer, but its garage does offer a new engine.

This is Australia’s version of the Trump phenomenon. Like Donald Trump, Hanson is a non-establishment political disrupter. However, unlike Trump, who may soon occupy the White House, Hanson won’t inhabit the Lodge.

This leaves Australia’s establishment and the central planners very much in control. It means we will remain firmly on our current bigger-government path, finan­ced by higher taxes and creative accounting.

Nobel laureate economist FA Hayek observes in his book The Road to Serfdom: “The more planners improvise, the greater the disturbance to normal business. Everyone suffers. People feel rightly that ‘planners’ can’t get things done.”

But he argues that, ironically, in a crisis the risk is that rather than wind back the role of government, people automatically turn to someone strong who demands obedience and uses coercion to achieve objectives.

Australia is now on that road to tyranny and, with another global recession in prospect and nearly 50 per cent of voters already dependent on government, the incentive is to vote for more government, not less.

A new survey has revealed that 60 per cent of Australians would not want a member of their family to marry a Muslim.

The research, which is part of an ongoing Deakin University study into attitudes towards Islam, also found more than one third of people thought Muslims should be more closely scrutinised at airports.

This comes just a week after a similar poll revealed half of all Australians would support a complete ban on Muslim immigration.

In the Deakin survey, a quarter of respondents said they would be comfortable if all anti-terror efforts focused solely on Muslims.

It showed that Australians have significantly more negative views towards Muslims, and while 60 per cent would be concerned if a Muslim married into their family, 33 per cent would be similarly unhappy over a Jewish fiancé.

Just 8.1 per cent of people would be upset if a relative was marrying a Christian.

The ongoing survey also revealed that when given the option, respondents did not disagree with Islamaphobic statements such as 'practicing Muslims pose a threat to Australian society'.

Co-author of the paper Dr Matteo Vergani, who is a Research Fellow at Deakin's Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, said education was the key to combating these attitudes towards Islam.

'We found that across the board – among conservative or progressive individuals, people of different age, education and country of birth – there was an association between someone's level of knowledge about Islam and their prejudice against Muslims.

'In the wake of the recent Essential poll which showed that 49 per cent of Australians support a ban on Muslim immigration, this result is particularly heartening and important because it suggests that education and knowledge of Islam is key to overcoming Islamophobia and building a more cohesive society.'

The research comes a week after it was revealed almost half of all Australians support One Nation leader Pauline Hanson's policy of ban Muslim immigration.

Polling conducted by Essential Research found 49 per cent of Australians surveyed supported a ban on Muslim immigration to Australia, with 40 per cent opposed to the idea.

The results surprisingly revealed more than one third of Greens voters (34 per cent) support the proposed ban, while 60 per cent of Liberal voters and 40 per cent of Labor voters agreed.

A perceived terrorist threat was the second greatest reason given (27 per cent) by those who support the ban, behind fears Muslim people 'do not integrate into Australian society' (41 per cent).

Locating the building in a premium area was a wasteful act to start with. As welfare housing it generated only a fraction of the income it could have generated if it had been used for high-end accommodation. But it gave good views to a few privileged poor people and the Left liked that. Rationality is however now catching up. The money made by selling the building will fund much more public housing than before

The arty-farty arguments for retaining an ugly building are amusing. They say it adds to "the social mix". So what? Why is that a good thing? It is probably a bad thing. Having lots of poor people in a given area tends to elevate the crime rate in that area. But you are not allowed to mention that, of course. Assumptions are all the Left need -- not those pesky facts. They don't even bother to argue for their assumptions. They just "know" the truth

IS IT ugly and deserving of a wrecking ball? Or iconic and in need of protection? It depends who you ask.

But for now, Sydney’s Sirius building — which has been used for public housing since it was built more than 30 years ago — appears to be living out its final days next to the iconic Harbour Bridge, in The Rocks.

The Cumberland Street apartment block is under threat from NSW Government plans for redevelopment, with most tenants having already moved out.

Hundreds of protesters have opposed the plans to replace the 1979 building with apartments boasting million-dollar views and price tags to match.

But their calls to save the building have so far fallen on deaf ears, with a heritage listing bid for the harbourside building ultimately rejected by the government.

The building is arguably the worst eyesore on one of the world’s most spectacular harbours. So why are so many people fighting to protect it?

Sydney’s Lord Mayor and NSW opposition members joined hundreds of protesters in a march from Circular Quay over the weekend, demanding one of the city’s most controversial buildings be saved from demolition.

Hundreds of protesters marched from Alfred Street, around the Quay, meeting at the base of the brutalist building on Saturday morning.

The vocal crowd, flanked by police officers, were addressed by several opponents of the building’s slated demolition, including Lord Mayor Clover Moore and opposition planning minister Michael Daley.

“If the government applies this policy to other inner city areas, it will destroy the social mix — the very soul of city — and we will fight that all the way,” Ms Moore said from the back of a truck in front of the building.

“This housing is needed just as much now, or even more, because the majority of social housing residents in Millers Point have already been dispersed.”

The mixed-bag of protesters included unionists, architects and social housing advocates.

The CFMEU granted a Green Ban over the building earlier this week, in an attempt to stall demolition plans.

Michael Daley warned the Baird government any attempt to tear down the building would be met by fierce opposition. “We’re here to say to Mike Baird, if you try and cheat the people of Sydney out of the Sirius building, when you come down here with your developer and your banker mates, we’ll be waiting,” Mr Daley said.

Architects Olivia Savio-Matev and Hugo Raggett said the Sirius building held more than just architectural importance in Sydney. “We’re here to support and save the heritage architecture of Sydney, but also to support the residents who are being evicted.

“I think the government’s stance on this building is purely a money grab.”

Leading the charge to save the building of brutalist architecture is the National Trust’s advocacy director Graham Quint. “They’re dramatic and they’re meant to make a statement,” Mr Quint told news.com.au. “I don’t know whether ‘beautiful’ would be the word, but not everything’s meant to be beautiful.”

The Sirius building had a unique history, said Mr Quint, built specifically for housing commission tenants turfed out of harbourside suburbs when the area was being redeveloped in the 1960s.

Far from blocking views of the harbour it actually “steps down” to reveal a wide sweep of Sydney, said Mr Quint. Any replacement could be even bigger.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

The insider said: 'The focus should be on getting the best rather than those who tick the right boxes.

'The suggestion that viewers only watch people who look like them is also quite insulting.'

The email, sent by editor Tim Smith, reads: 'As you know, one of Look North's objectives is to reach people from BAME (black, Asian, ethnic minority) communities who don't watch Look North as much.

'Viewing figures suggest that 52 per cent of white adults in Yorkshire watch us once a week, but only 33 per cent of BAME adults do.

'We now have a target of 15 per cent of people on Look North (reporters, presenters, contributors) being from a BAME background — which reflects the population of our region and the wider BBC's objective too.'

A BBC spokesman explained: 'Everyone pays for the BBC so it's important we reflect all audiences.

'Currently BAME audiences are under represented amongst Look North viewers, so it's sensible to look into what we can do to address this.'

EMMA Watson’s recent speech at the UN summit in New York has gained attention for all the wrong reasons after it was ridiculed by a UK columnist as “whining, leftie, PC crap”.

In a blistering piece published in Friday’s edition of The Sun newspaper, journalist Rod Liddle mocked the 26-year-old Harry Potter star’s involvement in the summit, where she addressed on-campus sexual violence and gender inequality.

“Hermione Granger has been addressing the United Nations General Assembly. Nope, not kidding,” Liddle’s column began. “Anyway, instead of telling them all the rules of Quidditch or how to turn someone into a frog, she bored them all rigid with whining, leftie, PC crap. Just like all actresses do if people are stupid enough to give them the chance.”

Liddle went on to question both the knowledge and increasing involvement of female actresses in such causes.

“Why do we indulge these luvvie slebs, most of whom know nowt?” he wrote.

“I don’t object to them having views and expressing them. I just don’t understand why we take them seriously. I suppose they got Emma in because Angelina Jolie is a bit tied up with other stuff at the moment.”

Over the weekend, Liddle’s comments about the star gained traction on social media and left fans gobsmacked.

In her address at the UN General Assembly last week, Watson presented the HeForShe campaign’s report on gender equality in worldwide universities.

She urged universities and colleges to “make it clear that the safety of women, minorities and anyone who may be vulnerable, is a right, not a privilege.”

In recent years, the actress has become known for speaking out on humanitarian causes and equal rights issues. She was appointed UN Women Goodwill Ambassador in 2014 and is an advocate for UN Women’s HeForShe campaign, which focuses on gender equality.

After assuming Hillary Clinton would coast to victory, Democrats are shocked to find that she is in a virtual tie with Donald Trump in the polls. Trump in fact leads in a number of key swing states, like Florida and Ohio. The New York Times roamed New York’s Upper West Side, a liberal bastion, and discovered Democrats freaking out. ‘It’s like someone dropped ice water on the head of America’, said one Clinton supporter. ‘Everyone sobered up. This could happen.’ The reporter found more than one liberal making preparations to emigrate if Trump wins.

There is an insular quality to the Democrats’ current fears, along the lines of ‘how could Clinton be tied with Trump, when I don’t know anyone who supports him?’. For the most part, they’ve blamed Trump’s rise on the media, saying the fourth estate is not calling out his lies. This is ridiculous, since about 99 per cent of pundits are against Trump, and even ‘straight reporting’ news journalists are saying they have a moral duty to oppose the Republican candidate, apparently because he is such a threat to the country.

To the extent that Democrats have looked inward, many will admit that Clinton is not running a great campaign. They acknowledge that her use of a private email server remains a problem. They concede the campaign’s response to Clinton’s collapse at the 9/11 memorial event was a mistake: first deny, then downplay, then send her out on the street to say she ‘feels great’ and hug a child – only to later reveal that she has had pneumonia for days.

But most Democrats aren’t that self-critical. In particular they won’t admit their candidate for president is an elitist with a low opinion of millions of Americans, and that her dismissiveness of working-class people is driving lots of them into the arms of Trump.

Hillary’s recent description of Trump supporters as a ‘basket of deplorables’ is a prime example. In case you missed it, a little over a week ago, Clinton said the following to attendees at a fundraising event: ‘Just to be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the “basket of deplorables”. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it.’ She went on to describe this group as ‘irredeemable’.

In case you’re wondering, Hillary’s basket is a pretty big one: according to current polling, that basket would contain about 44million Americans. In one sweeping statement, she managed to accuse millions of not just being wrong, but hateful. Clinton would later say she regretted citing as many as ‘half’, but otherwise defended her comments.

But what’s really striking is the reaction to Clinton’s remarks, especially from Democrats. When in 2012 Mitt Romney dismissed the ‘47 per cent’ who benefitted from government programmes, he was roundly denounced. Speaking to a private fundraising meeting, Romney was revealed as an out-of-touch millionaire who couldn’t care less about nearly half the population. Even his supporters cringed.

Fast-forward to today. Hillary’s supporters laughed at her line, and later wondered why it was newsworthy. The media declared it a minor faux pas at worst, certainly not as devastating to her campaign as Romney’s remarks were to his. Along came liberal pundits to declare that Hillary bravely defied ‘political correctness’ to speak the truth about Trump’s bigots. If anything, she didn’t go far enough. In the Washington Post, Stacey Patton wrote: ‘The only thing Clinton should have apologised for was her lowball estimate.’ Jamelle Bouie had a similar take: ‘We’re going to need a bigger basket.’ This reaction showed that Clinton’s comments were not just an individual politician’s one-off gaffe, but a strongly held view shared by many liberals.

Consider the optics of the event where Clinton made her remarks. It was an ‘LGBT for Hillary’ fundraiser, headlined by Barbra Streisand, with attendees paying up to $50,000 for the pleasure. Here is Clinton – a woman who left the White House in 2001 $500,000 in debt but has managed with her husband to amass a $200million fortune, without starting her own business or working in the private sector – addressing other wealthy types. If this doesn’t scream ‘elite’ – in both economic and cultural terms – nothing does.

These are insiders speaking to one another. The telling word in Hillary’s remarks is ‘Right?’. She is not seeking to convince her audience; she knows they all agree. They are patting themselves on the back for being ‘aware’ and supposedly tolerant. Rich and powerful people making it clear that they are not like the hicks out there in middle America. We’re better than them.

Hillary is also using an insider’s language: see her litany of ‘phobias’. These are terms she and her influential supporters wield all the time as weapons, words that enable them to occupy the moral high ground. From their dominant perch in the culture, they are the ones who get to accuse others of suffering from ‘phobias’. They also get to define what constitutes a ‘phobia’. Want tighter controls on immigration? You’re a xenophobe. Want to see greater security against terrorist attacks? Islamophobe. Disagree with Black Lives Matter? Racist.

What do you call sweeping generalisations about groups of people, and unfairly assigning malign, hateful motives to them, as Hillary does to Trump supporters? Well, you could say that is the definition of bigotry. Clinton and company believe that, as long as it is in the name of fighting racism, sexism, etc, then it is okay to denigrate huge swathes of people. Trashing the white trash is today’s socially acceptable form of elitist bigotry.

What does this mean for the election? For many Americans, this presidential election has become a referendum on the political establishment. In this race, Clinton is seen as the representative of this establishment, the defender of the status quo. She has to overcome not just her personal weaknesses as a candidate – which includes being viewed as untrustworthy by nearly two-thirds of the electorate, just as bad as Trump – but also her tag as the establishment leader. Her ‘deplorables’ comments only consolidate her in that role. And her comments also play right into Trump’s hands. Trump has sought to portray himself as the outsider versus the insider; as the representative of the masses versus the elite. Of course, Trump is neither truly an outsider nor a man of the people, but he is certainly having an easy time being able to position Clinton as elitist.

In dismissing so many as ‘deplorable’, in such an open way (she knew the remarks were being recorded), Hillary shows that the Democrats are willing to write off white working-class votes. Over decades, white workers have left the Democratic Party in droves, switching to the Republicans (or not voting). But in 2008 and 2012, Obama still sought to appeal to this group, even though his strategy was mainly predicated on big turnouts among African-Americans, Latinos and higher-income populations. Now Clinton is not even pretending to care; in her own words, they are ‘irredeemable’. As Bill Scher writes in Politico, Clinton is ‘making clear that… her path to victory doesn’t run through the white working-class vote’. In electoral terms, this is a risky strategy. ‘Clinton’s insult runs the risk of supercharging Trump’s base, paving the way for an upset’, says Scher.

When Clinton and others hurl words like ‘racist’ or ‘bigot’, it is an attempt to shame others into silence. Maybe they won’t change people’s minds – certainly throwing out these accusations is a form of denunciation, not an opening to debate – but they hope to drive opposing views out of the public realm, as people fear the consequences of publicly disagreeing. This seemed to be an effective strategy in the case of sex-same marriage, where opponents were effectively labelled as bigots.

When it comes to Trump, it appears that the Clinton approach is to hope to make people embarrassed to appear to side with him, to fear being branded ‘deplorable’. In that regard, it is interesting to see how many have proudly embraced the ‘deplorable’ label. Go online and you can buy a range of merchandise: ‘T-shirts, key chains, car decals, buttons, pendants, coffee mugs and even a deplorable pocket watch.’ Outside a Trump rally, a supporter holds up a sign saying ‘Deplorable Lives Matter’. This may not be an effective retort to Clinton, nor does it transcend the terms of the debate. But it is encouraging that people are not defensive and are responding in a feisty way.

To be fair to Clinton, she doesn’t consider every Trump supporter to be deplorable. She said the other half are ‘people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change’. They are not irredeemable, apparently: ‘Those are people we have to understand and empathise with as well.’ Yet, while sounding more sympathetic, this description is just as limiting as her ‘deplorables’ line – if not a basket of deplorables, then a sack of pitiful, desperate losers.

So, what are Trump’s supporters – deplorable or desperate? Maybe they are simply people who are fed up with Clinton, the Democratic Party and the American political establishment generally, who all, in their own way, treat them as inferiors.

Every day across Europe and the US and the West — jihad war escalates. “Two women detained on suspicion of planning terror attack in France,” Fox News, September 25, 2016:

Two young women suspected of planning an attack in France were detained by police in the southern French city of Nice, a person familiar with the investigation said Sunday, the latest sign that Islamic State is shifting its focus from the battlefield in Syria to orchestrating terror plots in Europe.

The two young women—17 and 19 years old—had been in contact with Rachid Kassim, a French recruiter for Islamic State, on the Telegram Messenger messaging app, the person said. Mr. Kassim, who is believed to be in Islamic State territory, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Mr. Kassim called on the women to attack specific sites in France to avenge the death of Abu Mohammed al Adnani, a founding member and chief spokesman for Islamic State, who was killed on a battlefield in northern Syria last month, the person added, without providing further details.

Even as Islamic State loses territory in Syria and Iraq, the mushrooming of small-scale terror attacks in Europe has allowed the militant group to keep people here on edge, without having to train and equip teams to pull off highly sophisticated operations.

Over the past year, a spate of terror attacks has left more than 200 people dead in France.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Monday, September 26, 2016

The Dalai gets it

Refugees fleeing brutal conflict in the Middle East should aspire to return home, the Dalai Lama has said.

In an interview with Piers Morgan, the Tibetan Buddhist leader, one of the world's highest-profile political exiles, said those who have left to escape fighting and disorder in countries like Syria and Libya should focus on bringing peace to their homelands.

The plight of hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing violence in the Middle East and North Africa has become a major issue in Europe and the rest of the developed world over the past few years.

Piers ended the interview by asking the Dalai Lama for a selfie, pictured, who happily obliged and even tickled his chin

The 81-year-old religious leader has been forced to live outside his own homeland since fleeing in 1959, 10 years after it was occupied by China.

Speaking on ITV's Good Morning Britain, he said: 'The main effort should go to help (their) own country bring peace, in Syria, Libya or even Afghanistan. Generally the people always feel, 'oh, one day we return'.'

Host Piers asked him whether all refugees should 'aspire to go back to their homeland', to which he replied: 'Yes. (They) should rebuild their own country.'

The Dalai Lama said that despite the current bloodshed the world is a 'better place' than in the past.

He also questioned the faith of Islamist terrorists, saying: 'Genuine Muslim practitioners will not create bloodshed.

'I think they (terrorists) have too much emotion, they should cool down.'

The spiritual leader also took time to discuss some lighter issues and even performed an impression of Donald Trump, making light-hearted fun of the US Predisential candidate for his hair and 'very small mouth'.

He added he was 'sad' that the actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were divorcing, saying separations often badly affected children

The Hollywood couple, known collectively as Brangelina, married in 2014 after 10 years together and have six children - Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, and twins Knox and Vivienne.

The Dalai Lama told GMB: 'Sometimes in divorce people ... the children they come closer to their father or mother. Sometimes it's difficult.'

Piers said he was 'fine' with the Dalai Lama having 12million Twitter followers compared to his five million, but asked the Buddhist how he felt about Kim Kardashian having four times as many with 48million followers.

But the Dalai Lama brushed it off and said he had 'no problem with it'.

He added: 'If she has more followers...good. I think that such famous people have no ability to compete with my wisdom.'

The pair ended the interview by taking a selfie together, with Piers quipping that the Dalai Lama 'could smile' for the camera.

The most famous American photo of World War II is undoubtedly that of the four Marines planting the American flag on Iwo Jima. The second most famous is probably the legendary photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt’s picture of an American sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square in New York City, when people were celebrating Japan’s surrender.

The kiss was not, of course, merely a peck on the cheek. If it were, no photo would have been taken. And if one were, no one would have remembered it. The sailor clearly grabbed the nurse. She is leaning backward, bent at the waist; he is holding her up with both hands around her waist.

The photo has been back in the news because the woman, identified as Greta Zimmer Friedman, died on Sept. 8, at age 92. She was 21 when the picture was taken.

The sailor, later identified as George Mendonsa, mistook Friedman’s dental assistant uniform for that of a nurse. He later explained that he hugged and kissed her because of his overwhelming gratitude for the work nurses had performed while he was in combat in the Navy, because of his elation over the war ending and because he had had a few drinks. As he put it, when he and Friedman were reunited in 2012 at the spot of their kiss, it was “the excitement of the war bein' over, plus I had a few drinks, so when I saw the nurse I grabbed her, and I kissed her.”

Any American who looks at that photo today realizes just how different a time we live in.

If a man were to do that to a woman today, he would likely be charged with sexual assault, found guilty, be ordered to pay a serious sum of money to the woman, be sent to prison, be civilly sued and be labeled a sex offender — effectively ruining much of his life.

She, on the other hand, would be regarded as victim of sexual assault and labelled a survivor, and would seek psychological counseling.

Living in pre-feminist darkness, Friedman did not see it this way. As her son told the New York Daily News, “My mom always had an appreciation for a feminist viewpoint, and understood the premise that you don’t have a right to be intimate with a stranger on the street. …(But) she didn’t assign any bad motives to George in that circumstance, that situation, that time.”

One reason might be that she was a Jewish refugee from Hitler’s Europe, and, unlike feminists in America, she knew real evil.

Given the context, the act was essentially innocent. Reinforcing its innocence are the facts that the kiss was very brief and Mendonsa’s wife can be seen smiling in the background.

But in the feminist age of enlightenment in which we live, when it comes to any act of physical intimacy by a man with a woman, there is no such thing as “context.” Unless there is a verbal “yes” accompanying every act by the man, the presumption is that the intimacy was a sexual assault, a form of rape.

Thus, in today’s America, George Mendonsa is deemed to have committed an act of sexual assault. Context has no say.

On the Sarasota, Florida, waterfront there is a 28-foot statue of Mendonsa kissing Friedman. It clearly offends at least one Sarasota Herald-Tribune columnist. A few days after Friedman’s death, Chris Anderson acknowledged that the statue “represents euphoria, innocence, romance, nostalgia and a level of unity and pride this country arguably has not seen since V-J Day.” But as a someone who surely attended college and probably graduate school, he sees the darker side, saying, “Is it possible that thousands upon thousands of people over the last seven years have come to the Sarasota waterfront to unwittingly pose in front of a giant depiction of a sexual assault?”

Likewise, the writer of the New York Times obituary of Friedman felt compelled to note that “In recent years, some have noted its darker undertones.” Among the examples cited was Time Magazine, which in 2014 had written, “many people view the photo as little more than the documentation of a very public sexual assault, and not something to be celebrated.”

There is no question that there needed to be greater sensitivity to men’s physical interactions with women, and that too many men did in fact get away with rape.

But America is not a better place — nor, for that matter, are American women happier — because we now consider George Mendonsa a sexual criminal and Greta Friedman a survivor of sexual assault.

For most Americans, America was — with all the flaws that did indeed have to be dealt with — a happier and more innocent place then. That’s why there is a statue of that kiss at the Sarasota waterfront. And that’s why “thousands upon thousands” of couples pose for pictures in front of it.

They are celebrating life, America, and men and women. At college, American kids are taught to fear all three.

Voters do NOT regret voting to quit the EU and their top priority is saving BILLIONS on membership fees after Brexit, top pollster finds

Britain does not regret voting for Brexit and voters have clear red lines in how the country should quit the EU, a top pollster has found.

Professor John Curtice, who works on major exit polls at general elections, said there was no 'buyer's remorse' among the public after the shock result in June.

The figures will come as a blow to Remain campaigners attempting to stir support for a second referendum on Britain's future in Europe months after Brexit was backed 52 per cent to 48 per cent on June 23.

More than twice as many people oppose a second poll than support another referendum.

At a briefing in Westminster today, Mr Curtice said: 'Very few minds have been changed - there are very few signs of regret.'

The top priority for voters - supported by 81 per cent of them - is ending Britain's financial contributions to the EU that every year run to billions of pounds.

A close second is ending free movement of people, backed by 79 per cent, which means ending Britain's membership of the single market as it leaves the wider EU.

The pollster told The Mirror: 'Most people do not feel European in this country. And so there is an argument about the legitimacy of this £350million that we don't 'control', that the EU decides how is spent.

'(People think) - ''Why does the EU have the right to spend 'our' money?''.'

Also at the event, Professor Matthew Goodwin added that the vote had also defined the core liberal v conservative battle – or 'identity politics' - currently dividing Britain and fomenting the rise of Ukip and other anti-establishment political groups.

The great Brexit hate crime myth: How claims of an epidemic of race crimes since the referendum are simply false

A fully-loaded gravy train clattered into the Grange City Hotel in central London on Thursday morning, when around 50 smartly dressed men and women shuffled across deep-pile carpets into its air-conditioned conference centre.

The group — or rather their employers — had each paid between £359 and £575 to attend the day-long event.

Some of these people were civil servants, others charity workers and academics. A handful worked in the private sector, though rather more appear to be employed by the taxpayer, via local councils, British police forces, and the Crown Prosecution Service.

The event bringing this eclectic and well bankrolled crowd together was the sixth annual Tackling Hate Crime Conference — an expensive and painstakingly organised shindig staged each autumn by the £6.5 billion FTSE 100 corporation Capita.

Its purpose, according to promotional literature, was to provide a forum to discuss how best to ‘respond to the surging growth of hate crime’ in the UK, which (the same literature breathlessly insisted) has ‘risen 57 per cent since the EU referendum vote’. With this in mind, speaker after speaker waxed lyrical about how violent and intolerant the nation has become in 2016, or called for Draconian measures to combat the ‘rising tide’ of bigotry on our streets.

Modern Britain, delegates were repeatedly told, is a country riven by homophobia and racism, where to be foreign, disabled or belong to a religious or sexual minority is to fall blamelessly into the firing line of virulent abuse.

‘There is more hate crime in London than in the whole of the United States,’ claimed a ‘keynote’ speaker called Mark Hamilton, who is Assistant Chief Constable of Northern Ireland.

Another speaker, from Southwark Council, talked vividly about the extraordinary bigotry she encounters on a daily basis, making the shocking claim that the ‘youngest perpetrator of hate crime’ she’d come across lately was ‘a four-year-old child who harassed a lesbian couple’.

All very sobering. Or so you might think. But behind the lurid rhetoric, not everything was quite as it seems. Take, for example, the conference organiser’s headline claim: that hate crime has ‘risen 57 per cent since the EU referendum vote’.

This eye-catching figure has certainly done the rounds in recent months, regularly bandied about by liberal commentators, the BBC and Left-wing newspapers.

Yet dig into its provenance and things soon start to smell distinctly whiffy. For the ‘57 per cent’ number was actually plucked from a single press release issued by the National Police Chief’s Council on June 27, four days after the EU ballot took place.

The document in question specifically stated that police forces had recorded ‘no major spikes in tensions’ since Britain went to the polls.

However, its footnote added that 85 people had logged hate crime ‘incidents’ on True Vision, a website that records unverified allegations of such behaviour, during the four days in question, up from 54 during the corresponding period a month earlier.

What exactly did this mean? The police press release made things clear. ‘This should not be read as a national increase in hate crime of 57 per cent but an increase in reporting through one mechanism’ over a single 96-hour period.

Fast forward three months, however, and the number was being used very differently.

As we have seen above, organisers of the Tackling Hate Crime Conference were using it to allege that hate crime had risen by 57 per cent across Britain during the entire period since the Brexit vote.

This is demonstrably untrue. Or, to put things another way, Capita was shamelessly promoting its £600-a-head event by falsely representing unverified raw data that had been collected over the internet during a single four-day period in June.

When the Mail put this to Capita, the firm instantly deleted the 57 per cent claim from its promotional literature, describing its inclusion as ‘an inadvertent error’.

All of which may sound a bit rum. Yet spend an extended period of time exploring ‘hate crime’ and the growing and lucrative industry that increasingly surrounds it, and you’ll find such cavalier behaviour par for the course.

For the more you investigate, the more it turns out to be a deeply cynical industry where dishonesty and hysteria reign, truth has been replaced with Left-wing dogma, and verifiable facts no longer count for very much at all.

On paper, Britain is a remarkably tolerant country. London has just elected a Muslim mayor by a whacking majority. Gay marriage is not just legal but supported by a comfortable majority of adults. Children from ethnic minorities consistently outperform white working-class counterparts at school and in university.

Surveys by the respected and politically neutral think-tank Pew Research, along with the prestigious British Social Attitudes Survey, show racial prejudice in long-term and perhaps terminal decline.

Yet despite such trends, we are routinely described as being in the grip of a hate crime ‘epidemic’ where a few high-profile incidents — such as the appalling recent murder of a Polish immigrant on the streets of Harlow (which may or may not eventually prove to be race-related) — are said to represent the tip of a sinister iceberg, and where the number of hate offences seems to grow year by year.

So how can we explain the disconnect? Let’s start with another pressing fact: that hate crime also happens to be one of the great political buzz-phrases of the moment. To this end, virtually the first thing new Home Secretary Amber Rudd did after taking office was to launch a ‘hate crime action plan’.

The Home Affairs Select Committee is holding an inquiry into ‘hate crime and its violent consequences’.

Next month, the Government will promote ‘hate crime awareness week’. It’s spending £2.4 million on a fund for churches and mosques to protect themselves against hate crimes, while the Met is creating a £1.7 million ‘crime hub’ to target online ‘trolls’.

Elsewhere, universities such as Leicester and Sussex employ academics in ‘centres’ for ‘hate crime studies’. The taxpayer hands over six-figure grants to charities which seek to ‘combat’ or ‘monitor’ hate crime.

Police forces employ staff to log it. Councils such as Kensington and Chelsea now have a ‘community support officer for hate crime’.

The Crown Prosecution Service has a ‘hate crime co-ordinator’ in all 13 regions, plus ‘area-based Equality, Diversity and Community Engagement Managers’ who ‘contribute to the delivery of the Hate Crime Assurance Scheme’.

These people, whose leading lights spent Thursday at Capita’s conference, often owe their jobs, status and mortgages to the fashionable perception that hate crime is somehow spiralling out of control.

That, in turn, has led to two distinct trends. The first is a relentless pressure to widen the number of people able to describe themselves as ‘victims’ of such crimes.

When Tony Blair first introduced hate laws, in 1998, they applied only to incidents of racial intolerance. However in 2003, the net was widened to include religious discrimination. Over subsequent years, first homophobic and then ‘transphobic’ abuse was added to the list, along with disability hate crime and, more recently ‘crimes against older people’.

All current categories (with the exception of elder abuse) can result in ‘sentence uplift’ — in other words, a likely increase in jail time — if a case goes to court and results in a conviction. Some 15,442 such prosecutions took place last year with 12,845 convictions, of which around a third saw a ‘sentence uplift’.

Last week, a new category of potential victim emerged: it was reported that several police forces may soon treat ‘misogyny’ as a hate crime, following the alleged success of a pilot scheme in Nottingham where it was decided that wolf-whistling could in certain circumstances constitute ‘threatening behaviour’.

Women may not be the only new demographic singled out for protection, either. Consider, if you will, the annual report of Stop Hate UK, an influential charity which gets around £240,000 a year from grants, largely from the public sector.

It suggests that ‘goths’ or people who choose to wear black clothes, are potential hate crime victims. To this end, it contains a ‘case study’ of abuse supposedly suffered by a ‘goth woman [who] has five facial piercings’.

In such a febrile environment, where almost anyone seems to be a potential victim, should we really be surprised if reported ‘hate’ incidents are on the rise?

Of course it should be stressed that genuine hate crime is not to be tolerated. In Friday’s Mail, for example, the Jewish Labour MP Ruth Smeeth described being sent 25,000 abusive messages by members of her party’s Corbyn-supporting far Left, one of which referred to her as a ‘yid c***’.

The problem, however, comes when the definition of what constitutes a hate crime becomes risibly vague. After all, the subjective way in which the police (who increasingly resemble glorified social workers) now categorise such offences is hardly forensic.

Under their official guidance, hate crime is now deemed to be ‘any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice.’

Proof of such intent is not necessarily required, the guidance adds: ‘Evidence of … hostility is not required … [The] perception of the victim, or any other person, is the defining factor.’

In essence, this means that anyone, anywhere, can force officers to treat something as a hate crime. All it takes is a vague ‘perception’. Such rules are perverse and open to abuse. They mean that, in theory, a straight white male punched in a pub fight can falsely claim his assailant thought he was gay, and therefore motivated by homophobia.

Such an incident will duly be investigated as a hate crime, with the police and CPS under pressure to prosecute.

If they fail, the ‘victim’ can potentially claim to have suffered so-called ‘secondary victimisation’ in which the ‘hate’ he or she experienced is compounded by the police’s lack of sensitivity.

Such factors may very well have motivated the ludicrous recent prosecution of Kevin O’Sullivan, a TV journalist who was involved in an altercation on a train back from a funeral a couple of years ago.

Around 24 hours after the event, the other party — a straight white man who’d initially declined to press charges — informed the police that he now wanted them to prosecute O’Sullivan for a homophobic hate crime.

The man claimed that during their argument he tried to make a telephone call, only to be interrupted by O’Sullivan shouting ‘Are you phoning your gay lover?’

CCTV of the entire incident told a very different story, however. It showed that the man did not make, or attempt to make, a single phone call during the confrontation. Unsurprisingly, when the case came to trial, O’Sullivan was acquitted.

Though awarded costs, he expects them to cover only a fraction of his £15,000 legal bill. Recounting the episode in a recent edition of the Spectator, he said the affair gave him ‘a ringside seat at the edge of insanity’.

The second great modern trend has been for the police, assorted quangocrats and other publicly funded organisations to go to extreme lengths to ensure the number of reported hate crimes is as high as possible.

Consider, in this context, the aforementioned police website True Vision. It allows anyone, anywhere in Britain, to report an incident, even if they were not the victim, have no idea of the victim’s identity, can provide no supporting evidence, and would prefer to remain anonymous.

Their claims then get logged as official statistics and, as we have seen above, used by ‘experts’ to draw sweeping conclusions (invariably negative) about the state of the nation.

Seldom has such a system been more open to abuse than in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote, when Left-wing media outlets predicted a ‘surge of xenophobia’ and disheartened Remain voters attempted to prove them right. On Twitter, the hashtag #postbrexit racism went viral.

On Facebook, a forum called ‘worrying signs’ was established for ‘anyone dealing with post-Brexit fallout’ to post reports of hate crime. From here, users were directed to True Vision.

Unsurprisingly, many allegedly racist incidents they carried turned out to be anything but. On the Monday after the referendum, a mobile phone snap of a smashed window at Donde Tapas, a Spanish restaurant in South London, was posted on Facebook. Its caption read ‘Spanish and Turkish restaurants in Lewisham had their windows smashed over the weekend. Very widespread reports coming in now.’

The post soon received 1,833 shares. One commenter noted: ‘The ghost of Sir Oswald Mosley now stalks the streets of England.’

The same picture and caption soon appeared on Twitter, where Dawn Butler, a Labour MP, dubbed it ‘awful,’ and another online commenter called it ‘Kristallnacht all over again.’

The Institute Of Race Relations subsequently asked the poster: ‘Is there any chance we could use your pic for a round-up of post-Brexit racial violence?’

But soon: a reality check. On a South London internet forum where the picture was also posted, one contributor pointed out: ‘I’m no expert, but that looks like a robbery attempt.’

The Met soon admitted it was almost certainly just that, and was ‘not considered to have a hate-crime motivation’.

A second widely reported hate incident that started life on Facebook around the same time proved similarly flaky.

It began with a post on a Remain-supporting forum reading: ‘My friend works at a well-known restaurant in Mayfair, 15 people just came in to celebrate the Leave vote. The customers dismissed him and asked for a English waiter, because he was Italian!!!’

This anecdote was promptly included as case-study in an official study of post-Brexit violence by the Institute of Race Relations, before being widely cited in the Left-wing Press. Yet neither the restaurant, the supposed victim, nor any fragments of proper evidence have ever been identified.

The fact is that we may never know. Yet if the state-sponsored and increasingly powerful hate crime industry gets its way, we could all be potential suspects.

For, to quote the old saying, the Left has a supply-and-demand problem with bigotry: there isn’t enough to go around to support the apocalyptic world view they hold so dear.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Background

The most beautiful woman in the world? I think she was. Yes: It's Agnetha Fältskog

A beautiful baby is king -- with blue eyes, blond hair and white skin. How incorrect can you get?

Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair

Enough said

A face of Leftist hate: Cory Booker, (D-NJ)

There really is an actress named Donna Air. She seems a pleasant enough woman, though

What feminism has wrought:

There's actually some wisdom there. The dreamy lady says she is holding out for someone who meets her standards. The other lady reasonably replies "There's nobody there". Standards can be unrealistically high and feminists have laboured mightily to make them so

Some bright spark occasionally decides that Leftism is feminine and conservatism is masculine. That totally misses the point. If true, how come the vote in American presidential elections usually shows something close to a 50/50 split between men and women? And in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won 53 percent of white women, despite allegations focused on his past treatment of some women.

Political correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners

Political Correctness is as big a threat to free speech as Communism and Fascism. All 3 were/are socialist.

The problem with minorities is not race but culture. For instance, many American black males fit in well with the majority culture. They go to college, work legally for their living, marry and support the mother of their children, go to church, abstain from crime and are considerate towards others. Who could reasonably object to such people? It is people who subscribe to minority cultures -- black, Latino or Muslim -- who can give rise to concern. If antisocial attitudes and/or behaviour become pervasive among a group, however, policies may reasonably devised to deal with that group as a whole

Black lives DON'T matter -- to other blacks. The leading cause of death among young black males is attack by other young black males

Leftist logic: There are allegedly no distinctions between groups of humans, yet we're still supposed to celebrate diversity.

Identity politics is a form of racism

'White Privilege'. .. Oh yes. .. That was abundant in the Irish potato famines. ... And in the Scottish Highland Clearances. ...And in transportations to Australia. ... And in Workhouses. ... 'White privilege' was absolutely RIFE!

Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves. Leftist motivations are fundamentally Fascist. They want to "fundamentally transform" the lives of their fellow citizens, which is as authoritarian as you can get. We saw where it led in Russia and China. The "compassion" that Leftists parade is just a cloak for their ghastly real motivations

Occasionally I put up on this blog complaints about the privileged position of homosexuals in today's world. I look forward to the day when the pendulum swings back and homosexuals are treated as equals before the law. To a simple Leftist mind, that makes me "homophobic", even though I have no fear of any kind of homosexuals.

But I thought it might be useful for me to point out a few things. For a start, I am not unwise enough to say that some of my best friends are homosexual. None are, in fact. Though there are two homosexuals in my normal social circle whom I get on well with and whom I think well of.

Of possible relevance: My late sister was a homosexual; I loved Liberace's sense of humour and I thought that Robert Helpmann was marvellous as Don Quixote in the Nureyev ballet of that name.

One may say that the person who gets in trouble with drugs is just as dumb without them

I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.

I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take children away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass

The genetics of crime: I have been pointing out for some time the evidence that there is a substantial genetic element in criminality. Some people are born bad. See here, here, here, here (DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12581) and here, for instance"

Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"

Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!

Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.

So why do Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" when backed into a rhetorical corner? They say it because that is the predominant conclusion of analytic philosophers. And, as Keynes said: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”

Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".

One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.

It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.

A modern feminist complains: "We are so far from “having it all” that “we barely even have a slice of the pie, which we probably baked ourselves while sobbing into the pastry at 4am”."

Patriotism does NOT in general go with hostilty towards others. See e.g. here and here and even here ("Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia: A Cross-Cultural Study" by anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan. In Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 5, December 2001).

The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin

"An objection I hear frequently is: ‘Why should we tolerate intolerance?’ The assumption is that tolerating views that you don’t agree with is like a gift, an act of kindness. It suggests we’re doing people a favour by tolerating their view. My argument is that tolerance is vital to us, to you and I, because it’s actually the presupposition of all our freedoms. You cannot be free in any meaningful sense unless there is a recognition that we are free to act on our beliefs, we’re free to think what we want and express ourselves freely. Unless we have that freedom, all those other freedoms that we have on paper mean nothing" -- SOURCE

Although it is a popular traditional chant, the "Kol Nidre" should be abandoned by modern Jewish congregations. It was totally understandable where it originated in the Middle Ages but is morally obnoxious in the modern world and vivid "proof" of all sorts of antisemitic stereotypes

What the Bible says about homosexuality:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; It is abomination" -- Lev. 18:22

In his great diatribe against the pagan Romans, the apostle Paul included homosexuality among their sins:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" -- Romans 1:26,27,32.

So churches that condone homosexuality are clearly post-Christian

Although I am an atheist, I have great respect for the wisdom of ancient times as collected in the Bible. And its condemnation of homosexuality makes considerable sense to me. In an era when family values are under constant assault, such a return to the basics could be helpful. Nonetheless, I approve of St. Paul's advice in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans that it is for God to punish them, not us. In secular terms, homosexuality between consenting adults in private should not be penalized but nor should it be promoted or praised. In Christian terms, "Gay pride" is of the Devil

The homosexuals of Gibeah (Judges 19 & 20) set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals. Are we seeing a related process in the woes presently being experienced by the amoral Western world? Note that there was one Western country that was not affected by the global financial crisis and subsequently had no debt problems: Australia. In September 2012 the Australian federal parliament considered a bill to implement homosexual marriage. It was rejected by a large majority -- including members from both major political parties. The tide turned in 2017, however, with a public vote authorizing homosexual marriage in Australia

Religion is deeply human. The recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe suggest that it was religion not farming that gave birth to civilization. Early civilizations were at any rate all very religious. Atheism is mainly a very modern development and is even now very much a minority opinion

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

I think it's not unreasonable to see Islam as the religion of the Devil. Any religion that loves death or leads to parents rejoicing when their children blow themselves up is surely of the Devil -- however you conceive of the Devil. Whether he is a man in a red suit with horns and a tail, a fallen spirit being, or simply the evil side of human nature hardly matters. In all cases Islam is clearly anti-life and only the Devil or his disciples could rejoice in that.

And there surely could be few lower forms of human behaviour than to give abuse and harm in return for help. The compassionate practices of countries with Christian traditions have led many such countries to give a new home to Muslim refugees and seekers after a better life. It's basic humanity that such kindness should attract gratitude and appreciation. But do Muslims appreciate it? They most commonly show contempt for the countries and societies concerned. That's another sign of Satanic influence.

And how's this for demonic thinking?: "Asian father whose daughter drowned in Dubai sea 'stopped lifeguards from saving her because he didn't want her touched and dishonoured by strange men'

Islamic terrorism isn’t a perversion of Islam. It’s the implementation of Islam. It is not a religion of the persecuted, but the persecutors. Its theology is violent supremacism.

And where Muslims tell us that they love death, the great Christian celebration is of the birth of a baby -- the monogenes theos (only begotten god) as John 1:18 describes it in the original Greek -- Christmas!

No wonder so many Muslims are hostile and angry. They have little companionship from women and not even any companionship from dogs -- which are emotionally important in most other cultures. Dogs are "unclean"

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename the following: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20121106-1520/jonjayray.comuv.com/

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here